Collective behavior of self-propelled rods with quorum sensing

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to explore how quorum sensing and volume exclusion influence collective behaviors of self-propelled rods, revealing diverse structures and dynamics relevant to biological and synthetic active matter.

Contribution

It systematically characterizes the combined effects of quorum sensing and volume exclusion on phase separation and structure formation in self-propelled rods.

Findings

Quorum sensing enhances cluster polarity and formation.

Different structures like asters, stripes, and hedgehog clusters emerge.

Larger aspect ratio rods form more ordered structures.

Abstract

Active agents - like phoretic particles, bacteria, sperm, and cytoskeletal filaments in motility assays - show a large variety of motility-induced collective behaviors, such as aggregation, clustering and phase separation. The behavior of dense suspensions of phoretic particles and of bacteria during biofilm formation is determined by two principle physical mechanisms: (i) volume exclusion (short-range steric repulsion) and (ii) quorum sensing (longer-range reduced propulsion due to alteration of the local chemical environment). To systematically characterize such systems, we study semi-penetrable self-propelled rods in two dimensions, with a propulsion force that decreases with increasing local rod density, by employing Brownian Dynamics simulations. Volume exclusion and quorum sensing both lead to phase separation, however, the structure and rod dynamics vastly differ. Quorum sensing enhances the polarity of the clusters, induces perpendicularity of rods at the cluster borders, and enhances cluster formation. For systems, where the rods essentially become passive at high densities, formation of asters and stripes is observed. Systems of rods with larger aspect ratios show more ordered structures compared to those with smaller aspect ratios, due to their stronger alignment, with almost circular asters for strongly density-dependent propulsion force. With increasing range of the quorum-sensing interaction, the local density decreases, asters become less stable, and polar hedgehog clusters and clusters with domains appear. Our results characterize structure formation and dynamics due to the competition of two qualitatively different interaction mechanisms, steric hindrance and quorum sensing, which are both relevant for engineered phoretic microswimmers as well as for bacteria in biofilm formation.